1) Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu is a well known Romanian poet. He was
born in Botosani, Romania on January 15, 1850. His parents were small land
owners and he was the seventh of eleven children. He was a Romantic poet,
novelist and journalist. He worked as an editor for the newspaper called The
Time. His work was inspired by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. His work
was
strongly influenced by Romanian writers and poets in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. Mihai Eminescu’s most
famous poems are: The Vesper 1883, And
if...1883, I Have Yet One Desire 1883, Blue Flower 1884, Evening on the Hill 1885, Oh Linger
On 1884, Epigones
1884, Letters,
in Ancient Meter, At Star 1886, Evening star, So
fresh thou art, Sonnet I II III, A Dacian's prayer, Venus and Madonna,
Down where the lonely poplars grow,
One wish alone have I , Years have trailed past, Now it's
autumn, Time flows by, Sleepy birds, To the star version 1 and 2. His
poems had themes of nature,
love, hate and Romanian folklore. The way Mihai Eminescu used to write his
poems was hard to believe. He would not write a poem when he had free time but
whenever he felt emotional or felt the need to express himself. However, when
he begun to write a poem, he would write his poems three to four days without
sleeping or eating he used to have coffee near him and cigarettes so that he
would stay awake. He stayed in his small room with a feather, ink and paper to
write on the poem. His poems have rhyme and it is very expressive and
emotional. His wife left him after spending many years together as a result, he
used to live alone in a small house and stayed in his room for days and
expressed himself and grieved through poems. Then, Mihai Eminescu becomes
depressed. He suffered from bipolar disorder, he also had syphilis.
The doctors injected him with Mercury which at that time it was the usual
treatment for syphilis. Mihai Eminescu suffered with depression and had
syphilis but he died from mercury poisoning on 15 June 1889. After his death
his poems were translated in over 60 languages. Mihai Eminescu is considered
the last Genius of Europe even today he is the national poet of Romania,
Moldova, and Ukraine. There are many monuments everywhere including Montreal,
Canada and even his image or face is on Romanian money called lei. Therefore,
his legacy will live on.
2)
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born on May 26, 1799
in Moscow, Russia. He was a Russian poet, novelist, dramatist,
and short-story writer of the Romantic era. Alexander Pushkin is considered the
greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. He wrote
many famous poems such as; Ruslan and
Ludmila 1820, The Prisoner of the Caucasus, 1821
The Gabrieliad, The Robber Brothers, The Fountain of Bakhchisaray 1823,
The Gypsies 1824, Count Nulin 1825,
Poltava 1829, The Little House in Kolomna 1830, Angelo 1833, The Bronze
Horseman, I Loved You, A Wish, Friendship, A Serenade, I've Lived To See Desire
Vanish, She, Thoughts, Winter Evening, To Natasha. Most
of his poems were about love, time, seasons and Russian folklore. In his poems
Alexander Pushkin used to express himself, fight, or critique the life style he
used to live in. His poems also refer to different periods of life. For
example, in the poem “The Coach of life” he is comparing
time to a carriage. The carriage is going faster as you grow older, at the
beginning you want it to move faster or you want to grow up but after adulthood
you wish for time to slow down because it is moving faster and faster. There is
a phrase "the night's dark lodging” meaning that he refers to death. Thus, in
that poem he is using different times of the day morning is childhood,
afternoon is adulthood, evening is old age, the end of the day must be death.
The technology he used to write poems is similar to Mihai Eminescu a feather,
ink and paper. Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin died on February 10, 1837.
He became convinced that his wife had an affair with the French officer
Georges-Charles de Heeckeren D’Anthès.
Alexander Pushkin challenged him to a duel. In the woods Georges D’Anthès shot him
in the stomach and after 2 days Alexander Pushkin died. His home is a museum
now. Thus, he is consider a Russian poet Genius and even today his poems are
taught in schools. In his honour there are many monuments, a small town named
Pushkin, even a small planet that was discovered by a Soviet astronomer Nikolai
Stepanovich Chernykh, is named after Pushkin.
3) William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 in
Cumbria, England. He was a major English Romantic poet. Wordsworth’s
mother died when he was 8 thus, he will write about it in his poems later on.
William Wordsworth went to Hawkshead Grammar School and that is when he fell in
love with poetry and it is believed that he made his first attempts at writing
poetry. In 1802 he married a childhood friend and had five children which after
2 years two of their children died. William Wordsworth met
with another poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, they published together the famous
poem called Lyrical Ballads in 1798. His famous poems are: An Evening Walk (1793), Descriptive Sketches (1793) ,Borders (1795,)
Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey (1798), Lyrical Ballads (1798), Upon
Westminster Bridge (1801), Intimations of Immortality (1806), Miscellaneous
Sonnets (1807), Poems I-II (1807) ,The Excursion (1814), The White Doe of
Rylstone (1815), Peter Bell (1819), The Waggoner (1819), The River Duddon
(1820), Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822), Memorials of a Tour of the Continent
(1822), Yarrow Revisited (1835), The Prelude Or Growth of a Poet's Mind (1850),
The Recluse (1888), The Poetical Works (1949), Selected Poems (1959), Complete
Poetical Works (1971), Poems (1977). However, he was known for his poem
called The Prelude and it is
considered to be the most successful achievement of English romanticism. It is
about his spiritual life. In fact, all of his poems are about his experience
and what he has been through, he expressed himself through the meaning of the
poems. In 1847 his other daughter died as a result, Wordsworth lost his will to
write poems. He died on April 23, 1850. Thus, his wife published The Prelude
after his death.
4)
Edwin Arlington
Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet born
in December 22, 1869. He is best known for his short poems. He had a difficult
life thus, his poems have a dark pessimism theme. He describes that his
childhood was unhappy, his parents wanted to have a girl they did not named him
until he was six months old. His brother Dean died of a drug overdose. He also
had another brother named Herman. He was very charismatic and handsome he
married a woman that Edwin himself loved. Not only his personal life was
failing but also business as well as a result, he became an alcoholic and
became alienated from his wife and children eventually he died in 1901 in a
charity hospital. Because his life was kind of dark and so many negative things
kept happening his poems had a sad emotional meaning. Poems that he wrote are: A
Happy Man, A Song at Shannon's, Aaron Stark Afterthoughts, Alma Mater Amaryllis,
An Evangelist's Wife, An Island, An Old Story, Another Dark Lady, Archibald's
Example, As a World Would Have It, Atherton's Gambit. His poem were simple,
neat short and he rhymed the words. For example, in the poem “A Happy Man” he rhymed, see, me, dead,
said, behind, kind, life, wife, right, night, brought, thought, tears, years,
rest, blest. His poems were also about personal failure, frustrated desires, bad
luck, ideas that he believed in and truth that he has seen. He died at the age
of 65 because of alcoholism due to his failures in life.
5)
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson was born on June 11, 1572 in London,
England. He was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. His poetry is
about drama, rhythmical prose and sometimes has passion in it thou his poems
are more about rhymes. Some of his famous poems are: A Farewell to the World, A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme, A Hymn on the
Nativity of My Saviour, A Hymn to God the Father, A Nymph’s Passion ,A Pangyre,
A Pindaric Ode, A Sonnet, to the Noble Lady, An Elegy, An Ode to Himself ,Begging
Another ,Blaney's Last Directions. For example, in the poem “An Elegy” he uses rhymes such as:
praise, raise, much, such, rear’d, fear’d. Ben Jonson was married and had
children however, he outlived all of his children this affected him and wrote
poems about his children. His marriage was unhappy and he separated from his
wife. He
was paralyzed due to illness and died on August 6, 1637.
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